Now everyone here will do ourselves
a favor to listen very intently to this scripture that we're
about to read together. The one speaking is God the Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a very simple word here. Anybody here can understand what
this says. And it's a very serious word.
It applies to everybody here from the least to the oldest.
So listen and follow along with me in your Bibles. Let's read
Mark 8 beginning in verse 35 and we'll read down to verse
38. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it. But whosoever shall lose his
life for my sake and the gospels, the same shall save it. For what
shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose
his own soul? For what shall a man give in
exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be
ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful
generation. Of him also shall the Son of
Man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father with
the holy angels." Now there are many scriptures that teach us
that living for this world, living for money, living for position,
for power, for prestige, and those sorts of things, that they
are very detrimental, very dangerous, and a way of destruction for
our souls. In 1 Timothy 6.10, the word says,
the love of money is the root of all evil. The love of money. It didn't say money's evil, it
said the love of it is. Which while some coveted after,
it's in the heart, the heart's where the evil is. While some
coveted after, they've erred from the faith. They trust their
money instead of God. Trust their money instead of
Christ. Look to it for salvation instead of Christ. And they pierce
themselves through with many sorrows. In Luke 18, 25, the
Lord said it's easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye.
Easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich
man to enter into the kingdom of God. Some people will use
those scriptures and they'll try to excuse their laziness
from the hard work that's required to get the credentials you need
and to get a good job and get off the lazy behind and go to
work. Some people are lazy around all their life. claiming they
don't want to be rich, and what it is, they're just lazy. There's
a big difference between that. The love of laziness, the love
of depending upon somebody else to provide is just as much evil
as the love of money. This evil that we're talking
about is setting your eyes and your affection, your heart, on
something that is not salvation, something that will not save
you. That's the evil. Proverbs 23.5, let me just read
this to you. He says, labor not to be rich. Cease from thine own wisdom. Don't you think it's interesting
that Solomon put those two things together? Labor not to be rich. Cease from your own wisdom. Wilt
thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? Our wisdom and
our riches are not. They're not worth pursuing after.
For certainly, he says, riches make themselves wings. They fly
away as eagles toward heaven. That's what they do. Now, the
Christ Jesus is salvation. He's the one speaking here. He's
salvation. Setting your heart on Christ
by His grace, by the Holy Spirit, being committed to this gospel,
feeding upon the Word, and promoting the gospel means you will suffer
as our Savior did. That's what it means. But this
is joy to the believer by His grace. It's great joy to the
believer because He's our life. He's our salvation. This gospel
is our food from heaven whereby we're fed Christ the bread, the
true and living bread. So let's back up a few verses
and let's get the context here of what the Lord, when He gave
this serious warning, and let's see what our Lord was speaking
particularly of when He began to say this. Now our Lord was
traveling along with His disciples, and back in verse 31, He says,
And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many
things. He called Himself the Son of
Man because The Son of God joined Himself with a fleshly nature. He joined His divine nature with
a fleshly nature. He's the Son of God and He never
ceased being God the Son, but He came and joined Himself and
became the Son of Man. He's the Son of David promised,
the Son of Judah, the line of the tribe of Judah, the Son of
Jesse, the Son of David. He's the Son of Man, a real man. And He did that in order to suffer,
and to be rejected and to lay down his life, to give his life
in order that he would save his people from our sins and present
us to the Father holy and perfect and without blame. That's why
he did this. And so he says here, the Son
of Man must suffer many things. If His elect children are going
to be redeemed, if they're going to be justified, if they're going
to be made the righteousness of God, then He has to go to
that cross. He must suffer in their place
as their substitute in order to make propitiation, satisfaction,
atonement to God for our sin so that God will accept us. He
had to suffer those things. He had to lay down His life that
He might give us life. and be resurrected to newness
of life with Him. Whenever the Lord saves a child,
when He saves one of His children and quickens you by the Spirit
of grace, by the Spirit of God, it means that we're going to
be willing to suffer for Christ. It means we're going to be willing
to suffer for His gospel because we see through the gospel through
the word of grace, through this gospel we hear, we see what he
did for us. We know the power of this gospel. We know the power and wisdom
of God comes into the heart of a man through this word of this
gospel because it pleased God to save by the foolishness of
preaching. And those who are called, Christ has made the power
and wisdom of God. And we can say with Paul, I'm
not ashamed of this gospel. I'm not ashamed of Christ, I'm
not ashamed of His gospel, because I know it's the power of God
unto salvation. For therein, in this gospel,
by the Spirit of God, the righteousness of God is made manifest in the
heart that He makes new through this Word. Because the just are
going to live by faith. from faith to faith, from the
faithful one to those he quickens and makes alive and gives faith.
And so we made willing to suffer many things for him, and we will,
we will, we have to, because he suffered. The servant's not
above his master. We're gonna be like our master.
Well, he says here in verse 31, and he began to teach them that
the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected of the
elders and of the chief priests and scribes and be killed. The Lord Jesus said that the
highest, most pious, most respected leaders, not in heathen religion,
not those outside of Jerusalem out there somewhere bowing down
to a stump, not those. He's talking about those who
claim to worship the true and living God. He's talking about
those who claim to be waiting for the Messiah to come. He's
going to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the
scribes and be killed. Now this is God speaking. This
is God who is love. He wouldn't dare say a word to
be contentious. He's telling the truth. He's
speaking the truth to those He loved, to His disciples. God
who put His Spirit into the heart that He makes new. That's who's
speaking here. It was those chief ones in the
chief seats in religion who rejected the Prince of Life. Do you hear
what Christ is saying? Do you hear what He's saying?
Believers that follow Christ are going to be rejected by folks
who claim to worship the true and living God, who claim to
be worshiping Christ Jesus. That's who we're going to be
rejected by. Many get mad when the preacher is preaching the
truth, and they'll go somewhere else until they get mad there,
and then they'll go somewhere else until they get mad there,
and they're always going, they're always mad and glad, mad and
glad all over, repeating the process all over. That's not
suffering for the gospel's sake. That's not suffering for the
gospel's sake. Having a new heart where you've been united to Christ,
where you're persuaded, you're convinced, you know the gospel
when you hear it, you know Christ Jesus is all your salvation,
you know He's all your righteousness, you know He's all your sanctification,
you hear His voice being preached to you through the gospel, and
you know that that those that are gathered there, you recognize
the love of God in their hearts because they love the same gospel.
It's being united in heart with Christ and with His brethren
under His Lordship so that you believe Christ, you need this
gospel, you need to hear it, and you're settled, and you know,
I've got Him. He's brought the gospel to me,
and you know Him. And he said, verse 31, and after
three days he must rise again. He was teaching them all these
things. By his life, his faithfulness, his trusting God from his holy
heart all the days of his life as the righteous servant of God,
he is the holy, righteous, faithful one, the holiness and righteousness
of his people. That's what he is. By his own
obedience, by his own suffering, perfectly in obedience. By His
death, He is all the justification of His people. The law has nothing
else to say to those for whom Christ died because He put away
their sin. They'll be called to believe
on Christ their righteousness and lay all their hope on Him
by faith. For God hath made him sin for us who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He was wounded
for our transgressions. That's substitution. He was bruised
for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was laid upon him. And with his strife, that which
he suffered, which he bore, we're healed. And then by his resurrection,
He said, I must rise again. I must suffer these things. I
must die and I must rise again. And by His resurrection, all
those that God the Father put in Him by divine election, when
He died, they died. And when He rose again from the
dead, they rose again in Him. And each sinner for whom He died
will be called by His grace, by His gospel, and they'll rest
in this wonderful good news that we are seated at the right hand
of God in Christ Jesus right now. That's good news. For Christ also hath once suffered
for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God,
that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh,
but quickened by the Spirit. He's alive, and His people are
alive in Him. Paul said in Colossians 3, 3,
for you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. That's
the good news. And the Lord was teaching His
disciples this. He was teaching His disciples exactly what He
teaches His pastors in their hearts before He ever sends them
to preach the gospel to His people. Because this is the good news
of the gospel. This is the one string to pluck
from beginning to end. I had somebody tell me, since
I've been here, you need to get some new material. I was telling
a pastor friend that this week. He said, they didn't know what
a great compliment they paid you, did they? That's true. That's what men think. But this
is what we love, and this is what he sends them to preach.
But notice what happened here, verse 32. And he spake that saying
openly. He wasn't hiding this from anybody.
He was saying this to everybody that was around him, not just
to those following him, his true disciples, but to everybody that
was standing there around him. He said this saying openly, and
Peter took him, took him aside, took him off privately, and began
to rebuke him. Peter took him off to the side,
the master, the prince of life, God, God in human flesh, took
him off and began to rebuke him. Peter, he didn't want him talking
about Christ's suffering or about his children having to suffer
because that won't be a message that these sinners around here
are going to like. He didn't want him talking about being
rejected by popular religion. No man's going to want to follow
you follow you, Master. If you talk about being rejected
by religion, that message is not going to make men want to
follow you. And you tell them they're going to be rejected
by religion? Don't talk about Christ being made sin. Don't
talk about suffering the justice of God. Men don't like to hear
that they're sinners. They can't make themselves acceptable
to God. And if you tell them that, it's
just going to make them mad. Don't talk about death and burial
and resurrection. These are things that are too
heavy for sinners. These are the things Peter was
telling the Master. Men have told me, you're just being contentious. You need to lighten up. Peter
rebuked the Master for teaching these things. But listen to what
the Lord said to Peter, verse 33. But when he had turned about
and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get
thee behind me, Satan, for thou savourest not the things that
be of God, but the things that be of men. Satan had taken over
Peter's thoughts. Peter was thinking not the will
of God, Peter was thinking the will of man. He was interested
in the word that pleases the flesh rather than the word of
Christ, the true prophet. He was savoring the things that
be of the flesh, not the things that be of God. He wasn't savoring
eternal redemption. He wasn't savoring righteousness
and holiness and divine satisfaction and eternal glory wrought and
purchased and accomplished by Christ, living and dying and
rising again. He was savoring fleshly wisdom. He was savoring fleshly comfort. He was savoring that which would
bring His own flesh and those around Him the most ease. He
was savoring that which He thought would bring them the most success
in getting others to join with Him and follow Him. And the Lord
rebuked Peter, and He said, Get behind Me, Satan. Get behind
me, Satan. Satan loves for you, men and
women, to be religious. He loves that. He loves for you
to have an interest in hearing about how you can maintain an
appearance of religion while justifying yourself for living
the life you really prefer while giving the least amount of commitment
to Christ and his gospel as possible. He loves that. He'd love nothing
more for you to come to God in your own filthy, stinking rags
of righteousness that you've accomplished. He'd love for you
to do that because he knows he'll have you right back when you
do that because God won't receive us that way. One of our members
attended a worship service somewhere else last week and he told me
that the preacher's message was one advertisement after another
of everything that church had to offer. He said he would read
a scripture and just say just a little something that really
didn't even get to the heart of the passage. And then he'd
start talking about something else to market the church to
everybody that was there. And that's what most churches
are. Most churches are marketing businesses that are trying to
attract you to them more so than that church down the road. That's
all they are. Most pulpits speak more of how
to build churches through compromising the truth of the substitutionary,
successful work of Christ. They want to talk about that
rather than preaching the glory of God in the blood of Christ
Jesus and what He accomplished thereby. They want to talk about
how to govern churches rather than to trust Him on whose shoulder
the government rests. and tell sinners about Him, who
has all power in heaven and earth, who can turn our little hearts
whichever way He wants to, who can make His child willing and
obedient from the heart by His sovereign power, by His sovereign,
irresistible Holy Spirit working in our hearts, and He does it
through the Word of the Gospel. But Satan has come in and he's
making men savor the things of men when we try to tone that
message down and say, now that's not the best way to approach
this thing. I had someone call me up and tell me that they didn't
think it was fit to have their loved ones attend here because
I speak so much about blood. I had that happen. Without Christ's
blood, we have no gospel. You see, Satan always wants you
to savor things that man thinks are a little more palatable to
the flesh. Without blood, we don't have
a gospel. In the garden, when God slew that animal in the garden,
he slew that animal in the garden and made coats of skins to cover
the elect pair in that garden because they had sinned against
God and they were depraved and fallen and there was no other
way God would receive them unless God Himself did everything necessary
to make it so He could accept them Himself. That's the offense
of the blood. That's the offense of the blood.
Abel came in the blood of a lamb, and God received him. He came
by faith in the blood of a lamb, and God received him. And the
way of Cain. The way of Cain spoken of throughout
the Scriptures as wicked works, the way of Cain is this, Cain
came to worship, Cain came to an altar, Cain came to the place
where God would meet with people, but he came there with the works
of his own hands trying to expect God to accept him by what he
had done. He came with no blood and God wouldn't receive him
because God won't receive any sinner except you come trusting
the blood of Christ alone. That's the offense of the blood.
That's the offense of the blood. God passed over the firstborn
in Egypt. the firstborn in Israel when they were in bondage in
Egypt. Because God Himself had provided a lamb for them and
made them to know and to understand and taught them that only by
being under the blood of that lamb would they be spared and
He would pass over them. But He never provided a lamb
for anybody of the Egyptians firstborn. He provided a lamb
for Israel. He provided a lamb for them.
And He saw that blood and He passed over them because He saw
the blood. and he killed everyone that wasn't
under the blood. That's the offense of the blood
to the flesh, to the fleshly man. Every high priest that ever
came and came into the holiest of holies throughout the Old
Testament and he came in there with the blood of a lamb, he
was accepted and all those that that high priest represented
were accepted only when he came in and took blood, the blood
of a slain sacrifice, who was slain in the place of those that
He represented. And He took that blood and He
put it on the mercy seat over the broken law. It covered the
broken law of God for them. It was the seat of mercy, the
seat of propitiation, the seat of atonement with blood on it. And that's where God would receive
them. And He didn't do that for any outside of Israel. He did
it just for Israel, for His people. That's the offense that man has
with the blood. It's not just talking about blood.
Men will turn on TV and watch bloody shows all the time. Turn
on TV and watch cops and men being arrested and jabbed and
stabbed and everything else and that don't offend them. Why does
it offend you to hear about the blood of the gospel of Christ?
Because it's declaring you can't come to God any other way but
in the blood. That's what's offensive about the blood. Let me read
you some scripture. Let's look at Hebrews 9. Hebrews
9 verse 12. Hebrews 9 verse 12, neither by
the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, Christ
Jesus, the Son of God, entered in once into the holy place,
having obtained eternal redemption for us. Look down at verse 22. Verse 22, almost all things are
by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood
is no remission, no sins put away. Look at Hebrews 13, look
at verse 12. Hebrews 13, 12. Wherefore Jesus also, that He
might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without
the gate, that He might make them holy, that He might separate
them. And this is why we rejoice in this message of the blood.
It's because the glory goes to Him that loved us and washed
us from our sins in His own blood. That's why we love this. But
you take blood out of the message, you don't even have a gospel.
You don't even have a message. You don't have any truth. You
don't have any hope. You don't have any life. You have no Holy
Spirit of God present. At all, and no salvation. All
you're left with is a money-making, self-serving business that takes
the Lord's name in vain. Be very afraid. Be very afraid
of any place under the thumb of associations that have million-dollar
budgets. It's rare, rare to find one preacher
under that thumb that speaks clearly about the successful
finished work of Christ. And usually when he does, he
loses the budget. right quick. But that's the way
of the natural heart, is to settle for a place that speaks generically
of God's electing grace, that speaks unclearly about Christ
dying in the place of the elect and saving His people from our
sins, that speaks ambiguously of the necessity of the Holy
Spirit regenerating and giving life and faith and repentance
so that a man can even turn from his filth and believe on God.
The natural heart will gladly take that dirty water and drink
it down, just as long as the preacher's a good social worker
and the church offers plenty of religious activity for them
and their children. Those that crucified Christ,
those that he said he was going to be rejected by and crucified
by, they meet the criteria, the exact criteria that most men
today are seeking in a preacher and in a church. The exact criteria. And they're doing the same thing
today. They're crucifying the Son of God afresh and counting
the blood of the covenant an unholy thing. All right. Well, they'll be glad for you
to go the way of Simon Magus. You know what his way was? Simon
Magus was willing to pay. He wanted to pay Peter for gifts
that only the Holy Spirit can give. He wanted to pay Peter
to have a position and a title of prestige in the church. And
those false prophets will be more than willing. Satan is glad
to give you a teaching position, a title of deacon. You can work
church around your life. You can play a part whenever
you have nothing else better to do. Just pay the price and
it will give you those gifts and those titles. How about stop
giving another cent? How about stop doing another
thing for the church? How about just come and hear
the gospel preached? How about come and don't have
to lift a finger to do a thing? Don't have to give a penny. Just
come and sit down. Clear your schedule and sit down
and consistently hear the gospel of Christ preached and see what
happens. You ever heard a preacher tell
men to do that? to do it. Just come and hear. Don't do
anything. Just come and sit and listen and hear and see what
happens. Can you? Can we? Can we do that?
The rich young ruler couldn't. He couldn't do it. That's what
Christ told him to do and he could not do it. He just could
not do it. The natural heart was glad to
pretend to lay down his life so long as he can save his life.
Glad to pretend to lay down his life just so he can save it.
He'll take religion any day of the week. Just don't tell me
to lose my life for Christ in this gospel. You who believe,
you know this. You know that our flesh is subdued.
You know that our old man is subdued. You know that that new
man is renewed. You know that this gospel is
the food. This gospel is the unity. This gospel of Christ and Him
crucified. hearing what Christ accomplished
by His own doing and dying every week in and week out. You know
this is what unites us, this is what subdues us, this is what
increases our faith, it's what increases our love, it's what
increases our joy. And we go out into the world
and He shows us all these things providentially every week in
our lives. that everything He's been teaching
us through this Word is so. It's true. It's real. It's vital. And He causes us more and more
by His grace to lose our life and trust all into His hand.
He does that through this Gospel. And when He makes us to trust
Him who is the righteous servant of God, who did not fail, but
successfully accomplished the salvation of His people, to make
us trust Him alone, He makes us righteous servants of God
who shall not fail because we're sustained by His all-sufficient
grace. That's what He does. He unites
us with Him, giving that new heart. I was thinking about this
today. I don't know why this came to
my mind, but I was trying to think of how common men make
Christ's blood out to be. And all I could think about was,
for some reason, paint. And I thought of artwork in a
paint store, and I thought, that's what men do. Men make Christ's
blood as common, as worthless, as useless, as universal, as
a bucket of paint in a store. And you have to go there, and
you have to pay some price, and you have to purchase that paint,
and you have to bring it home, and you have to paint your house
with it. That's not God's gospel. It's just not God's gospel. He
does the work A to Z. He provided the blood. He applies
the blood through the Holy Spirit. He makes you get under the blood
by His work, by His power, by His gospel. And we gladly, willingly
get under the blood, and that's where we want to stay, by His
grace. Well, how did the Lord answer Peter? Let's look at this,
verse 33. He said, Get thee behind me,
Satan, for thou savest not the things that be of God, but the
things that be of men. But you know, Peter had a new
heart. Peter was teachable. Peter didn't run off and join
in with the Pharisees when the Lord told him that. Peter heard
and he submitted to the Word of the Lord. He heard Him. Now
here's the message, the Lord's message. This is our text. But when He
had called the people unto Him, with His disciples also, He said
unto them, Whosoever will come after Me." The Lord's words to
everybody who would believe on Christ, everybody who would take
His name and follow Him, that's who this Word was to. He called
them all to it, all around. He said, come here and hear,
come here and hear. And He said this, here's the
heart of the matter, verse 34. If you come after Me, let him
deny himself. Self and Christ cannot reign
together. Self and Christ can't both reign
as master. They just can't. No man can serve
two masters. Self and Christ can't reign together.
What self? It's being more concerned with
the business world, the material world, the social world, the
political world, and the self-serving religious world. That's what
it is. It's preferring our way, our
will, our works, our things that we love, that we want to have,
that we've refused to give up, rather than following Christ.
It's putting those things first. A man can't follow those things
and follow Christ. Those things can't be preeminent
and Christ be preeminent. It's just impossible. You just
can't do it. No man can serve two masters. That's as plain as day. No man
can. No man can serve two masters. Here's verse 34. Whosoever will
come after me, let him deny himself, and then here he says, and take
up his cross and follow me. Now we just saw, we talked about
what the Lord did on His cross. He died. That's what the cross
is a symbol of. Let Him die. That's what He said.
Let Him deny Himself and let Him die. Let Him die. When the
Lord called the Apostle Paul to life, look over at Philippians
3. When He called him to life, this is what it is to repent. Philippians chapter 3. This is
what true repentance is right here. He suffered the loss of
his friends. He suffered the loss of his family,
his religious refuge, his prestige, his power, his most prized possessions. He left it all. That's repentance. That's repentance. And it's in
the heart, brethren. It happens in the heart. A man can have
his doctrine as straight as can be and be as truthful as can
be. But wherever his treasure is, wherever his heart, whatever
his heart's set on, that's who's going to have the preeminence.
It's either going to be self or it's going to be Christ. But
when you granted repentance, true repentance in the heart,
here's what Paul said, Philippians 3.7, but what things were gained
to me? Those I counted lost for Christ. That's exactly what Christ is
telling us. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.
Paul said, What things were gained to me? Those I counted lost for
Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all
things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do
count them but dung, that I might win Christ." Hold your place
there. I'm going to come back and show
you something else in that text, but let's move along here now.
I'll give you another example of what it is not to repent.
Whenever Lot was brought out of Sodom, his wife was brought
out with him. And this was the word of the
messenger to him. He said, escape for your life.
Look not behind you again. He said, don't stay in this plain. Escape to the mountain, lest
you be consumed. And it says his wife looked back
from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. She wasn't
in the city anymore. She left the city bodily. She
went out of the city bodily. But her heart never left it.
Her heart never left there. And where her heart is, that's
where her treasure was. And she had to look back. And
she looked back at that city. And when she did, she died. She
died. She hadn't been granted repentance.
She hadn't been turned. A man will only leave all for
Christ when he's been given faith in Christ and repentance to turn
from all else. But Christ will save you when
you have that. He'll be all your peace of heart. He'll be all
your refuge in all the times of oppression. And He has an
inheritance reserved for you in glory. Look at verse 35. He says, for whosoever will save
his life shall lose it. Whoever says, my way has brought
me prosperity in this life and I like it, I'm not willing to
part with it. You remember, Satan was given power to go to the
Lord and say, I'll give you all these kingdoms. It might not be God that made
us rich. Ever thought about that? Satan's able to enrich a man,
if God permit him to. I'm not willing to part with
him. I'm not willing to leave everything. I'll take Christ,
but I don't want him on Christ's terms. I'm not willing to deny
myself the things that I prefer. I'm not willing to be crucified
with Christ, to suffer loss for his sake and his gospel. The
Lord said, you lose everything for nothing. lose everything
for nothing. You sold yourself for naught,
for nothing. 60, 70, 80 years of this life
and all the pleasure and all that this world can give you
and all the honors and all the glory and all the prestige and
all the riches and power this world can give you. It is a poor
investment, a very poor investment in light of eternity of hell
and separation from God that you will pay. It's a poor investment,
just poor. Verse 35, but whosoever shall
lose his life for my sake in the Gospels, the same shall save
it. I know pastors who pastored and
they were prohibited from preaching the truth of the Gospel and the
Lord called them. while they were in the pulpit,
while they were in the years when they were pastors. They
called them, and they had to depart with all that. They had
to leave it, but they believed the Lord Jesus Christ for the
first time, and they gladly did. I've known men that professed
to know the Lord for many years, and the Lord finally called them
by His grace. And they said, this is the first
day I've ever believed Christ. And they forsook all their former
religion, because it was just filthy rags. It was just vanity. They gave it all up gladly and
followed Him. You may have to let go of worldly
ambition. You may have to let go of the honors and the prestige
and take a lesser position. But all will be done. that you
might have Christ. Every bit of it. When God does
His work, it's just so. Nothing brings more peace, nothing
brings more comfort nor more satisfaction than when the Spirit
of God enters in and makes us forsake our worthless our unprofitable
life that we spent our whole life trying to protect and take
refuge in and been under this tremendous burden of sin and
just nothingness to cast all that off and to know that I'm
safe and I'm secure and I have everlasting life in Christ and
that the one who holds the sun in the sky every morning the
One who has His hand in the whirlwind that causes so much devastation
just like flicking houses like matchsticks, that One who's ruling
heaven and earth and all deep places and all the seas, that
One is my Redeemer, that One is my Justifier, that One is
my Holiness, that One is my God and my Savior and He's given
His life for me in this earth. He'll give me everything I need
in this earth. Man, you can just, you talk about
honor, you talk about prestige, you talk about riches, you talk
about clothing robed from head to foot, and garments that man's
never been able to weave, where their best master weavers have
never been able to make anything like the garment he robes his
child in, and the riches he ladens us down with, and the spiritual
blessings that he's given us. Oh, let the world look at you
and say what they want to. Let the world look at you and
get sideways with you and reject you and say whatever they want
to. Oh, that doesn't matter. Oh, got all things in him. Listen
to what he said here, verse 36. What shall it profit a man if
he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a
man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall
be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful
generation. Of him also shall the Son of
Man be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with
the holy angels." I'll just be brief here, but you know what
it is when we won't submit to Christ, when we won't forsake
everything for him and his gospel? Verse 38, he tells us, we're
ashamed of him and we're ashamed of his words. That's what it
is. I may know in my head that God
put a particular people in Christ and He came and He laid down
His life for that particular people and He accomplished their
salvation. I may know that doctrine in my
head, but if I can stomach to hear universal atonement just
so as I don't have to take a stand for the truth, the fact of the
matter is in my own heart I'm ashamed of Christ and His gospel.
If I know divine election's true, but I can be content to sit and
hear and support a man, exalted man in his will, so long as I
don't have to take a stand for Christ, so long as I can continue
to have my way in this world and live like I want to in this
world, the heart of the matter is I'm ashamed of Christ and
his gospel. You can try to candy coat that
and self-justify all you want to. That's what the truth of
the matter is. It's an indication that there's a head knowledge
only, but not in the heart. Believers aren't ashamed of Christ.
Believers aren't ashamed of his gospel. His word is perfect,
converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is
sure, making wise the simple. That's what his gospel does.
He said, I didn't speak in secret. I didn't speak in a dark place.
I didn't say to the seed of Jacob, seek me in vain. He said, I,
the Lord, speak righteousness. I declare things that are right.
You won't have to suffer the sufferings of Christ if you'll
conform to this adulterous, sinful generation. You won't have to
suffer them at all. Look at what Paul said though.
Look back over there at Philippians 3. But this is what a believer
wants to do. Look. You find this being the case
more and more. Listen to this, Philippians 3, 9. He said, I
want to be found in Christ, not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, which is of my doing, but that which is
through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by His own faithfulness, that I may know Him and the power
of His resurrection, look at this, and the fellowship of His
sufferings. being made conformable unto His
death. He said, I want to suffer just
like Christ suffered. Because when you suffer like
Christ suffered for the reason Christ suffered, you're suffering
for the right reason then. That's suffering to want to suffer. Men rejected Christ because He's
the way, the truth, and the life, because He's the righteousness,
the holiness, the redemption of His people. I want to suffer
that. And if conformed to His death, He said, I'm going to
be rejected, I'm going to be killed, but I'm going to be raised
again. Paul said, I want to know the
fellowship of His suffering, I want to be made conformable
unto His death, if by any means I might attain to the resurrection
of the dead. I want to go right where my Savior
went. I want to walk right where my
Savior went. But if we're ashamed of Christ and His gospel, look
at verse 38 back in our text. He says, "...of him also shall
the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his
Father with the holy angels." You know, Christ is coming back.
This thing is not... I mean, every one of us sitting
here right now... I don't know how to say this
any more plain. This is the judge and the jury that's talking right
here in our text. He's the judge. We're going to
all stand before Him. Every one of us sitting here
today, He's coming back in the glory of His Father with all
His holy angels, and we're going to stand before Him. If our hearts
corrupt, if our heart is separate and set on the things of this
world, we're not going to hide that from Him. We're not going
to come into His presence and try to show something that we've
done, that we did in this world, and say, didn't I do some wonderful
works? Everything that we thought was
good is going to be bad if we don't rest in Christ and His
righteousness alone. There's two ways that He's set
here before us, and here they are. Verse 35, Whosoever will
save his life shall lose it. It's just that simple. But whosoever shall lose his
life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. Just simple, isn't it? Just simple. the way of faith, the way of
salvation. It's not making a decision and
giving your heart to Jesus and doing any of those things, being
baptized, and then going on and living your life like you want
to live it. Salvation, the way of faith, is being given a new
heart that's in love with Christ. It's being given a heart that
really delights to follow Christ, that delights to be with Him
and be with His people and follow Him. And it's a It's a lifelong
commitment. I'm his. I'm ready to sell everything
else I got. And that's what the Lord said.
When a man has found this gospel, when he's found it, he'll go
and sell. He'll sell up everything he's got to go buy that field
where that precious treasure is. When he finds a pearl, he'll
go sell everything he's got and bring that just to buy that one
pearl of great price. We're talking about, it just
changes everything. It turns your world upside down. No, it doesn't. It turns your
world right side up. Your world's upside down right
now. It turns your world right side up and you see things as
they are. And you're able to say, our light affliction, which
is but a moment, is working for me a far more exceeding eternal
weight of glory. I'm rejected by the adulterers
and adulteresses of this world, but I'm accepted by God Almighty.
I'm rejected by religious harlots and prostitutes of this generation,
but I'm accepted of Christ Jesus the Lord. I'm rejected by this
adulterous and sinful generation, but I'm more than conquerors
through Christ that loved me and gave himself for me." That's
what we can say, brethren. And this is what he'll say in
that day to you who've lost your life in this world for Christ's
sake and for his gospel's sake. This is what he'll say to you.
Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, Come
ye, blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared just for
you. The kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world. This little light affliction
won't be anything in light of that, really. We'll be saying
in that day, this was a good investment. A good investment. Amen.